August 2012 (warning; strong image)

1. Of Lemons and Lemon Tea

Transplanted here, an errant seed that thrives among the evergreen within your bounties rain and shine welcomed home with open arms although I lean toward sunny skies among the rows of those I know from many years of growing close…

Across the steepest mountain sides like evergreen of northern climes keen southern sister citrus climbed up verdant hillsides far and wide blossoms bloomed and fruit arrived but many groves did not survive the building booms and other trials…

Who’s early sunrise, if you please refills my cup of lemon tea which port of call did you traverse to slake this thirst that sets me free?

Note– “Many years ago, my Aunt Joanne and Uncle George Blair owned acres and acres of citrus groves in the Redlands area of Southern California. Like everyone else involved in agriculture, they went through good times and bad times in the citrus business. The last time I visited the area, I found that almost all of their groves had been replaced by industrial warehouses and acres of paved parking lots”

2. Loser

He is always losing something, His keys, His phone, His iPod, his license, His bank card, his hat, his work-shirt.

Honey, have you seen the keys…where did those directions go?

When I was pregnant with my daughter he put The keys in my purse, and promptly FORGOT.

We had to call my sister-in-law down from New Hampshire.

For years, it drove me nuts. I would set up key hooks, we tried a bowl- Nothing I could do, No habit to ingrain, no trick I could teach, No job I could assign could stop him from losing his shit.

Then, one day it just, Dawned on me, In one of those freeing moments,

-where a chunk of that chip on your shoulder falls away and you breathe deeper than you thought possible-

Things like that just happen to him, It’s part of who he is.

Loving him does not include Saving him from all pain and aggravation, And I shouldn’t expect him to change who he is.

In surrendering that I noticed something amazing- He always finds what he thought was lost.

♦Evelyn Adams is 34 years old and still a girl. She is writing to stay alive, discovering herself accidentally and losing herself on purpose. A reader and a writer, she loves craft, creativity, inspiration and words. She has been published in On the Brink, Vol 2, an Anthology, and Tuck Magazine. Find her at Filling a Hole and on twitter @E_Fillingahole.♦

3. Love’s last opportunity

Let us go back for a moment, hand-in-hand as we were, you and I, the year we first built our castles of sand, first saw the ocean rise in its fury, first talked of abroad. How you shone like early light on the sea! How you shimmered with glee! Back then was some happy, and all the happy there was was between us.

How could we know that our ocean, the ocean we said we would cross together, was also between us, the crossing not pleasure, but a dream to be chosen or not, the choice strictly ours, now laid out between the ocean and happy? Why did we choose as we did?

Don’t look: we are back for this moment together, face to face and across the landscape remembered, dragged out from the ocean of time, unexpectedly brought here together, waves cutting us off from our prime. We may never again be now or be then to unsing the song of that time or give ear to the song that remains in the waves, tumbled and turned and churned against cliffs that will crumble to dust in the foam and its mist.

You said you would fly – Look! There is the swing where I pushed you so high! And you laughed. Then:Throw me beyond the horizon! you called as some engine somewhere that drove us was stalled and nothing was left of us then but the words: words in their thousands, words more than the stars words that we’d strung to infinity, words not making sense. Something to trip on, to break arm or neck. A trap, a disaster, a threat, total wreck.

Let’s pick up the pieces, clear up the beach – and see what we left and is still within reach.

♦David King is a Special Needs Education teacher who lives in Surrey, England. He is retired and blogs at Pics and Poems

4. The Fallen Heroes

Sound of the bugle War! Thundering vehicles Soldiers march Their legs rise and fall like side rods on a steam train Unwavering synchronization They have bid goodbyes and kisses to loved ones Motherland needs them more than us Fueled with hatred for the opposition March to protect March to destroy March to serve But who is the winner? The bullet shall decide The number of caskets shall decide The number of fallen heroes shall decide Tears of mothers shall decide Yearning of a widow shall decide.

♦Tarun Mazumdar is a writer and poet from New Delhi, India. His focus is on Haiku and Personal Poetry. You can find him at; www.chaigaramchai.blogspot.in♦

5. Darkness

someone chucked a pinhole camera out an oblong overhead it turned into a firefly- all the light that had been trapped inside-

trees grew hungry tentacles there was darkness again

and shadows went eavesdropping

♦Mohana Das is a writer from Kolkata, India. The Acoustic Ink describes her as “a mender of words”. Her poetry has been published, or is upcoming in a number of anthologies and vox poetica, Vayavya, The River Journal, Open City 360 blog and The Brinks Gallery. She blogs at http://insanebloom.wordpress.com♦

6. Rebellion

When the Master died

in the red ruins of the night

and the child of slaves became free,

orphaned she ran, a witchwild flame

from her matchstick home

to the hardcobble streets

on her pierced bound feet.

She hobbled in shadow

gnawed crusts cooked in sun hid with mice till the wounds

closed their lips; climbing the hill,

she looked down at the Corpse

in the snowman, the burnt stinking Tower

raised her arms, crooked her knees

swirled her tattered skirt and began to dance

♦Joy Ann Jones (this poem) is a retired relic of the Sixties living in the American Dust Bowl, with her spouse of sixteen years and two dogs. She has been writing poetry since high school and blogs at Verse Escape♦

7. Power of a song

Sometimes, after a day of correcting, of disciplining and instructing, of guiding and showing, this hawk’s wings are laden with mud from too many days of rain, from too much time on the ground.

I become still. I listen-

to Sarah’s songs, to Susan’s melodies, to violins and mountain ballads, to Native flutes, wind in the grass, birds in the trees, to water and penny whistles.

The sludge looses its power, slips from my wings and I feel the breeze, the lift.

Always, it is the music that gives me wings.

♦Appalachian poet, Darlene Franklin-Campbell is the 2012 recepient of the Mary Ballard Chapbook Poetry Contest winner. Her work often benefits cancer patients and her poetic voice is a stand against Mountaintop Removal. You may visit her website at http://darlenefranklincampbell.com/chippie to learn more about her and her work♦

8. The Closet

Overpowering perfume (rose) lingers, crushes, blends with mold. Hangers, scattered on the floor, some padded with purple velour, once held cashmere sweaters.

The door of the safe is ajar, as it has been for years, the combination hidden too well. Heavy chains of gold entangle with a strand of perfect pearls and a locket that holds a black and white tattered photo of her youngest daughter and a dent from a tiny tooth.

Shelves of shoeboxes overflow— twenty years worth of receipts, silent witnesses to money tossed at frivolity. In my memory I hear angry words hurled in defense of wanton spending.

Bell bottoms cavort with shoulder pads. Browns and beige, no color. No prints. Just tepid tan and one black knit suit. I finger the smoothness of silk and satin, the texture of brocades and polyester.

In the far corner a cane leans against a walker. The week after she died I moved in.

♦After many years working as a nurse in the fields of death and dying, Victoria C. Slotto chose fiction and poetry as a second career. Her first novel, “Winter is Past,” was recently published by Lucky Bat Books. She lives with her husband and two dogs in Reno, Nevada and Palm Desert, California. Pay her a visit at http://victoriacslotto.com/♦

9. We Could Get Air

They paved the streets last summer And the whir of my bike’s tires On the smooth blacktop Was like a one note song

As I raced down Fourth Avenue Going nowhere in particular Not even six o’clock—Saturday morning No one else was up and about No one I cared about anyway

Roy, Mr. Hammond’s bulldog Came barreling around the side Of the house as I sped past A spark of fear slithered up my spin And the hair on my head seemed to tingle I looked over my shoulder

As Roy slid to a stop in the gravel At the side of the road I couldn’t hear him over my laughter And the buzz of my tires

But I could see he was barking Furious, and daring me to try that again

I crossed Baseline Road Without even a thought about traffic And a dust cloud spewed out behind me As I hit the well-worn trail We’d carved through the vacant lot We even piled dirt in places To make jumps where we could get air And I pedaled furiously As I came to the first of them

I hit the small mound of packed dirt Jerked back on my handle bars

And flew! Flying through the air On that glorious first day of summer vacation I felt free Free from the rigors and trials of fifth grade The screaming and crying at home And from the very earth

In those few brief and wonderful seconds I felt a freedom that was complete and real And I wished with all my young heart I could just keep on climbing into the sky And disappear forever

10. Chicago

HOG Butcher for the World, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight Handler; Stormy, husky, brawling, City of the Big Shoulders:

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys. And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again. And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger. And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them: Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning. Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;

Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness, Bareheaded, Shoveling, Wrecking, Planning, Building, breaking, rebuilding, Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth, Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs, Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle, Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse. and under his ribs the heart of the people, Laughing! Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

Carl Sandburg (Wikipedia) is a Swedish American Poet who died in 1967 aged 87. Sandburg’s 1927 anthology, the American Songbag, enjoyed enormous popularity, going through many editions; and Sandburg himself was perhaps the first American urban folk singer, accompanying himself on solo guitar at lectures and poetry recitals, and in recordings, long before the first or even the second folk revival movements (of the 1940s and 1960s, respectively). Sandburg’s collection, The War Years was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1940. His Complete Poems won him a second Pulitzer Prize in 1951♦